31 July 2013

PARIS DAY 6

Now this day was a REAL museum day! We saw so much art on this day, it was amazing.

We started by heading to the Musée d'Orsay, and happened to wander through the Tuileries Gardens along the way.

Unfortunately, the big problem with art museums is that you aren't allowed to take photos inside most of them. So, there aren't really a ton of pictures from today because both the d'Orsay and l'Orangerie prohobited photography.

This photo wasn't really of any art (except all the sculptures in the background I guess), but the interior of the d'Orsay museum was just too cool! It is inside the former Gare d'Orsay, which was once a railway station built around the turn of the 20th century. There was a LOT of Impressionist art in here, which is my all-time favorite. It is just SO COOL to see all of the paintings you have studied your whole life, there in their real form! There was Monet, Manet, Degas, Sisley, Seurat, Renoir, Cézanne, Ganguin, and Van Gogh of course. All amazing. Owen's favorite was Van Gogh, I loved all the Monet, and we both were impressed and obsessed with the near neuroticism of Seurat's amazing works. And Cézanne is cool because you can always tell which paintings are his so easily. They also had some other exhibits downstairs that were pretty great - a whole one on furniture which wasn't really our taste, and some art from other areas besides just typical Western Civ. Those paintings were really awesome, and so different and lovely. There was one of elephants we just adored!

Staring out of the big clock towards the Tuileries, where we later picnicked for lunch. I love sitting in those gardens and just watching all of the people, all the kids with their little boats running around. Baguette + nutella + fruit = happy us.

We went to the Musée de l'Orangerie after lunch, and on our way Owen was approached by a very sneaky gypsy who gave us a "real gold" ring for good luck. And then asked us for money. So we'll see if we have good luck thanks to that ring...Anyway, this museum was much smaller (we spent almost 4 hours at d'Orsay and didn't get through everything!) and was a nice change. Upstairs in this museum are two rooms in the shape of an infinity sign, and each room has four giant landscape paintings of water lilies by Monet. They were so gorgeous! I couldn't help but have Owen take a super sneaky picture of me - normally I am quite the rule-follower, but Monet is my all-time favorite and I just wanted one of this amazing artwork. So, so, so beautiful. And there was more art downstairs, including Picasso. And I got yelled at by a French guard for getting too close to a painting. Apparently there was an invisible line I was supposed to be behind. I'm sorry, it was just a really cool technique and I wanted to see the detail!

After l'Orangerie, it was time for dinner, and we headed to Angelina. This place is super famous, and supposedly was where Coco Chanel herself used to slip into on a rainy Paris afternoon. Their hot chocolate is world-famous, supposedly "so thick you could drink it with a spoon." Or so we heard.

Obviously we ordered the hot chocolate, even though it was 86 degrees outside and probably even hotter inside the restaurant. If you're super famous thing is hot chocolate, and you know everyone's going to order it (which everyone did), you think you'd invest in some A/C. It was the most I've ever paid for hot chocolate, and it was good, but did it blow my mind? Was it so thick I felt like I was just eating heavenly chocolate? Would I ever go back there again? No.

Owen got the white hot chocolate, which actually was better in our opinion. And we both ordered some food, which was stupid. It was so expensive! I think his sandwich was like 24 euros. And here's the kicker -- we actually were going to order some REAL food (not just a silly sandwich), but they stop taking orders for real food (we were going to get a seafood risotto) at SIX P.M.!!!!!!!! We were actually seated before 6, but our server was so freaking slow, that by the time she got to our table, she refused to take an order for real food. Needless to say, we were not impressed. Whoever started the rumor about Parisians eating dinner late needs to have a serious word with Angelina.

We decided to disregard any decorum at this point - we were paying an outlandish amount for very basic food, and at least we were going to enjoy ourselves. So you bet we dipped the "frites" (French fries) into our hot chocolate. Take that Angelina. It would have been better with a Frosty.

Angelina, whatever. Let's go to the Louvre. I was so naïve about the Louvre. I had on our schedule 4 hours for this massive museum, and it really could have taken us two whole days easily. THERE IS SO MUCH ART IN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We literally were running around the whole museum the whole time, just to take in as much as we could! Also, Owen is going to kill me for posting this picture of him, but it was HIS idea to go see the Mona Lisa, so it's only fair. Like I mentioned before though, it was actually cool to see her.

Awkward no-smiling me for a no-smiling Mona Lisa.

Owen and Venus de Milo. Yeah, she's cool.

There was loads of Greek art.

And LOADS of Egyptian art!

Devynne, this one is for you! Remember all of those pots we had to memorize for Greek and Roman mythology?! They are real, and they keep them here in the Louvre!! I was still able to pick out gods and goddesses on them, which was pretty great.

Oh, and they also had Mesopotamian art. SUPER AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

Me and the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest records of writing, dating back to 1772 BC. Wowza. It is an engraving of Babylonian laws, including "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." And it's much bigger than I realized!!

At this point, we didn't even know what stuff was, we just thought it looked cool and we wanted to see as much as we could! I would DEFINITELY plan WAY more time if we went here again, and may even consider doing a paid tour, because there was just so much to see (and a lot of it described in French) that it's nearly impossible to do it all on your own.

On our way out, we decided to take a picture of the sweet interior of the pyramid. We also saw the coolest red sunset on our walk home, but it was hard to capture on camera, so we'll just have to remember it. The best part was, the Louvre was only a ten-minute walk home!